Singing for non-singers

[Mark Wein]

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/markwein/mark-viperroom.jpg

Disclaimer - I am not a professionally trained vocalist..I am a college educated guitarist who works as a guitarist because he can sing

I teach performance classes in my studio and while we have a great vocal staff (5 instructors with Masters Degrees from places Manhattan School of Music, USC and Chapman university) I end up having to do some coaching with the students in the classes who are instrumentalists that do not take voice instruction.

Besides the obvious task of teaching them to breath properly my quickest fix is getting them to pronounce vowel sounds better and feel the resonance on their head in the proper place. Since you carry most pitch duration on a vowel sound if we sing those better they will usually sing in tune better.


"E" - pronounce the word "feet" - feel the vowel behind the front of your mouth or teeth.

"eh" or "eye" - pronounce the word "Head" or "High" - feel the vowel in your forehead and sinuses around the nose.

"A" - - pronounce the word "hay" - feel the vowel in the top of your head, or envision it a column that is shooting up through the top of your head from your throat.


"o" or "oh" - pronounce the word "boat" - feel the vowel in the "top and back" of your head and passing diagonally down to your mouth.

"u" or "oooh" - pronounce the word "you" - feel the vowel from the back of your throat shooting straight out the front of your mouth.


Try singing a little bit of your favorite song but really focus on feeling the vowels in the words that you are singing in this fashion...see if you sing more in tune!


Properly trained vocalists probably have other (and better) ways of doing this but I has gotten quite a bit of progress out of untrained singers with this little nugget

[warren0728]

thanks mark....i'll work on your suggestions....keep 'em coming folks!

ww

[hobo]

Thanks Mark

I'm not much of a singer ::). I need to check this thread out often and practice your tips here.

[Eminence_Front]

When I was in high school, I went to a performing arts school. (Think FAME!, only more Hetero.)


Anyway, I was in Theater for 7 years up until my junior year, doing community theater, school productions etc., and then changed majors as a junior to Design and Production (technical sound, lighting, stagecraft etc.)

We had to take alot of classes that just werent cool for a teenage guy, or so i thought, and I didn't get into the whole "fundamentals of dance", "american phonetic alphabet" and "tai che"...


I too, am not a born singer. But one of the classes I had to take as part of my Theater studies was Musical Theater, which I took as a Sophomore. Yes, there were some show tunes, and yes, I was one of the 15% of dudes who were straight...However, I did get alot of great vocal training pro bono just by being exposed to some really natuarally talented kids. (one of whom, a good friend of mine is the lead singer of the PussyCat Dolls. Nicole Scherzinger...)



Anyway, one note I'll add to the above, albeit unsolicited, is that we sometimes forget that the throat, tounge, cheeks, lips, and face are all very muscular. And much like many muscles, without proper stretching and excercise, they are pretty much underperforming and worthless.


Stretch your face, lips, throat and tounge before warming up with singing and you'll have more consistent results.



Also, placing your hands, palms forward behind your ears, will help you hear your own pitch beyond the resonance of your head. It acts as sort of a sounding board to keep from losing the low freq's out your ear canal and into the air around you. (note: there is a physical connection between your ears and your throat, it's the eustachian tube and dumps out at your pharynx in the back of your throat.) So this sort of helps act in the same way a studio monitor does. to project your sound back to you.


So the next time you're singing the opening verse to Black Dog in the shower, doing your best Robert Plant "hey hey mama"... place those hands, palms forward behind your ears and see if you can tell the difference.

[Mark Wein]

I'll have to give that a try. AOK